Death in Venice – poster for a movie by Lucino Visconti

When in my 20-s, I was obsessed with a movie by Lucino Visconti – “Death in Venice” and only recently I decided to design a poster for it.

Here’s the film’s synopsis:

While on holidays in Venice, a man in his 50-s (Aschenbach) falls in love with a stunningly beautiful boy, age 14 (Tadzio).

At first, Aschenbach’s interest in the boy is purely aesthetic, however, he soon falls deeply and obsessively in love with the boy, although the two never have direct contact.

Cholera infects the city, and although the authorities try to conceal the danger from the tourists, Aschenbach soon learns the facts about the lethal epidemic. However, he cannot bear to leave Tadzio and stays on in Venice. He becomes progressively daring in his pursuit of the boy, gradually becoming more and more debased, until he finally dies of the cholera, degraded, a slave to his passions, stripped of his dignity. But before he dies, the last image Aschenbach sees is Tadzio looking at him from the distance, standing against the see. The waves are coming and leaving, like a breath, the sun sets, everything comes to an end.